Ultra Music Festival faces class action lawsuit regarding ticket refunds

Ultra Music Festival is facing a class-action lawsuit regarding cash refunds for ticketholders.

The last thing Ultra Music Festival fans had in mind this year would for their favorite festival to be canceled due to the current global pandemic.  The second to last thing Ultra Music Festival fans had in mind would be to file a class-action lawsuit against their favorite festival.

Ultra Music Festival was one of the first large festivals to be canceled, leading other festivals worldwide to follow their lead. After the cancelation, UMF promised their ticketholders entry to next year’s festival or the 2022 festival, along with other packages including merchandise discounts among others and have given the ticketholders a 30-day window to choose.  However, they are not giving any cash refunds.  The lawsuit, which was filed Tuesday at the U.S. District Court’s Southern District of Florida claims that the offer to no refunds is unjust and inequitable.  The suit seeks damages and/or monetary relief for all ticketholders.

According to UMF’s terms and conditions, Ultra Music Festival has the right to issue a full or partial refund and also to not issue a refund at all, and further implies that if the event is canceled for reasons out of Ultra’s control, Ultra, at its own discretion, may issue the purchaser full or partial refund, postpone the event for a future date and/or offer the purchaser comparable accommodations. The suit also argues that a year-long “postponement” is in fact more of a cancellation rather than the event being postponed.

Victoria Pepe, a current J.D. candidate, stated, “Anytime you purchase a ticket, you are entering into a contract. Either on the back of the ticket or attached to the email receipt, the company can include whatever terms and conditions they would like, which make up the valid contract. Unfortunately, the people seeking damages through the class action suit will have a difficult time proving that these commonly used boilerplate contracts for business dealings are unenforceable.”

On the other hand, Joe Sauder of Sauder Schelkopf LLC, representing the plaintiffs stated, “We understand that the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted every part of the global economy but we do not believe that gives the Ultra Music Festival the right to shift the burden of this extraordinary crisis onto its customers, who, in some cases, paid hundreds of dollars to attend this festival and now the COVID-19 pandemic has or will preclude them from ever using any credit”

While it may take up to a few years until this gets sorted out, we hope Ultra Music Festival and all of its attendees can move past this.

Image Credit: Rukes.com